Many people are reluctant to use public restrooms due to actual or perceived sanitary conditions of those restrooms. However, in some instances, such use is unavoidable.
These people try to avoid touching any surface after they have washed their hands. However, touching a surface of the restroom is nearly unavoidable because sometimes the person must touch the handle of the door to exit the restroom. Some people carry gloves, wipes or the like to use in such public restrooms. Some people take an extra paper towel to use to cover the door handle. All of these techniques work, but are burdensome and not efficient.
Some prior art methods suggest covering a handle of a door so a person opening the door can avoid direct contact with the handle. Covering a door handle, while effective in preventing a person from contacting the door handle during operation of the door, does little to clean or disinfect the door handle. Furthermore, the cover then becomes a source of contamination, germs, bacteria and the like. Therefore, there is a need for efficiently and effectively sanitizing the handle of a door. This typically requires a person to carry a liquid spray bottle into a room, spray a disinfectant or antibacterial liquid onto the door handle and then wipe the handle clean. This procedure can be cumbersome and inefficient, requiring a person to carry items with him or her for the cleaning procedure.
Still further, some people, often nicknamed germephobes, wonder when the last time a door handle was cleaned, and even if there is some form of protection for this person, they are uncomfortable touching the door handle. These people are not satisfied by the mere existence of some means for cleaning or sanitizing the door handle, rather, they might prefer to know that such a cleansing device is activated at intervals in response to certain conditions or according to a prescribed cleaning schedule, such as every several minutes. Therefore, there is a need for efficiently cleaning and sanitizing a door handle at prescribed time intervals in response to certain conditions, e.g., according to a predetermined cleaning schedule, opening and closing of the door, passing of an individual in the vicinity of the door knob, turning on/off of the lights, etc. There is also a need to control the door handle sanitizing device to automatically shutdown during times when the door is not in use, e.g., overnight, weekends, and any other prescribed time when the door is not being used for an extending period.